General Question

judochop's avatar

Do you believe in life from other places like aliens and extra terrestrials?

Asked by judochop (16119points) November 6th, 2008
17 responses
“Great Question” (1points)

Just curious if you think that there is life on other planets or in other solar systems??

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Answers

EmpressPixie's avatar

Somewhere out there, I’m sure there is some form of life. I’m not sure that if we saw it we would recognize it as such, but I’m sure there is something out there. There’s so much space it seems arrogant and ridiculous to imagine we’re the only ones.

seVen's avatar

The Bible gives us no reason to believe that there is life elsewhere in the universe. In fact, the Bible gives us several key reasons why there cannot be. Yes, there are many strange and unexplainable things that take place. There is no reason, though, to attribute these phenomena to aliens or UFOs. If there is a discernable cause to these supposed events, it is likely spiritual, and more specifically, demonic in origin.

shadling21's avatar

Good question. It’s possible. I just don’t know if it matters.

Personally, I wouldn’t rely on the Bible for guidance.

Also, this topic has been discussed over here, in case you were looking for more opinions.

GAMBIT's avatar

The kid in me would love to believe in extra terreestrials but the adult in me says I can’t believe it until I see it. Yes I do believe in UFO’s but I tend to believe that they are just weather balloons spy planes and military aircraft from other countries. I would like to think that there is more intelligent life out there but until they take a seat at the UN it is still folk lore.

MrItty's avatar

I believe it is absolutely absurd to think that in all the universe, this one itty bitty speck of a planet is the only one to have developed life.

However, I also believe it’s equally absurd to think that any extraterestrial life has ever visited Earth, and the only ones who know about it are the crackpots you see on TV or in the tabloids…

wundayatta's avatar

My gut sense is that they aren’t out there. Certainly, we’ll never get a visit from one, nor will we visit them.

We might detect their signals some day. But SETI has been going for a while and hasn’t found shit. It is very demoralizing.

PIXEL's avatar

Our Universe is waaayy to big for us to be the only planet with life.

generalspecific's avatar

I put this in the other thread, but ah, what the hell.

From A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson:

“Statistically speaking the probability that there are other thinking beings out there is good. Nobody knows how many stars there are in the Milky Way—estimates range from 100 billion or so to perhaps 400 billion—and the milky Way is just one of 140 billion or so other galaxies, many of them even larger than outs. In the 1960’s a professor at Cornell, named Frank Drake, excited by such a whopping numbers, worked out a famous equation designed to calculate the chances of advanced life in the cosmos based on a series on diminishing probabilities.
Under Drake’s equation you divide the number of stars in a selected protion of the universe by the number of stars that are likely to have panetary systems; divide that by the number of planetary systems that could theoretically support life; divide that by the number of which life, having arisen, advanced to a state of intelligence; and so on. At each such division, the number shrinks colossally—yet even with the most conservative inputs the number of advanced ciliizations just in the Milky Way always works out to be somewhere in the millions.
What an interesting and exciting thought. We may be only one of millions of advanced civilizations. Unfortunately, space being spacious, the average distance between any two of these bivilizations is reckoned to be at least two hundred light-years, which is a great deal more than merely saying it makes it sound. It means for a start that even if these beings know we are here and are somehow able to see us in their telescopes, they’re watching light that left the Earth two hundred years ago. So they’re not seeing you and me. They’re watching the French Revolutions and Thomas Jefferson and people in silk stockings and powdered wigs. (....) So even if we are not really alone, in all practical terms we are. Carl Sagan calculated the number of probably planets in the universe at large at 10 billion trillion—a number vastly beyond imagining. But what is equally beyond imagining is the amount of space through which they are lightly scattered.”

fireside's avatar

@seVen – the Vatican doesn’t seem to think aliens are demonic:

Just as there are multiple forms of life on earth, so there could exist intelligent beings in outer space created by God. And some aliens could even be free from original sin, he speculates.

krose1223's avatar

I think most definitely yes. Now as to whether or not they would decide to visit Earth I cannot say…

nocountry2's avatar

I think, of corse there is life, hopefully more intelligent than we can imagine, and in that case, are probably smart enough to either pass us by or blend in undetected. For all our advances and quirks, in the grand scheme of things I really think human being are interesting only to ourselves. For all our merits, we are still quite primitive. What use would an advanced alien race have for us anyway?

seVen's avatar

@fireside well the “Vatican” isn’t an authority for me no more although I was raised a Roman Catholic I am not one no more, my authority is Scripture alone.

Bluefreedom's avatar

As large as our universe is with as many different galaxies and stars there are out there, it seems almost impossible, mathmatically, that there couldn’t be life elsewhere in the universe.

As far as using the terms ‘alien’ or ‘extra terrestrial’, I guess that’s all we have to work with in describing other forms in the universe but it still comes back to some type of life form in one way or another.

90s_kid's avatar

That stuff seriously scares me. It is partially why I fear space. Just the fact that there is another life form out there that could be totally more technilogically advanced than us (like cities in the skies [i.e. jestons]). I fear that they could one day just take over or obliderate our planet. If they were nice, I would invite them for a cup of tea and crumpets.

TheKNYHT's avatar

@90skid LOL, tea and crumpets eh? gotta love them crumpets!
@all the rest of you: VERY well thought out responses! As I mentioned in answering a related question, I’ve looked into this issue off and on during my life; even did a paper on “The Possibility Of Life Elsewhere” in college.
In brief, think about a light year, a unit of measurement, the distance that light travels in one years time; in a single second, it can cover 186,000 MILES (that’s soemthing like revolving around the planet Earth six times, right?)!! multiply that by 60 and 60 again to determine how far it will go in one hour, then x 24 for a day, then 365 for that entire year… demz alotta miles!!
Our Milky Way galaxy is 100,000 light years across!
Its one of the smaller kids on the block too.
There are potentially BILLIONs of other galaxies in the universe.
Like they said in the film CONTACT: “It COULD be only us, but if it is, seems like an awful waste of space!”
@generalspecific From the quote you supplied, it would seem the odds are in favor of life elsewhere; however sometimes life doesn’t follow the dictates of the odds. While something is likely, it doesn’t make it certain.
If it is only us here on Earth, and all the rest of inhabitable space is devoid of life, that says something about us: that we are indisputably special and beyond rare! And that begs the question: Why is it only us?

Lonestarwildman's avatar

I believe in the possability

Lonestarwildman's avatar

@seVen That would be an awful waste of space if God only created life on earth only.
A few weeks ago I had an alert in my email that an earth like planet has been discovered.Wouldn’t it be fun to have neighbors?

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